Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?
beetlemaniac said:
...Do you think that the stuff he writes may be going off-tangent slightly, as in maybe excess theorizing without real hard evidence?
Well sure. All the biochemical experts do that. I think he must realize, though, that there is no direct path from results of experiments in the lab to what actually happens in humans in the field (box, cage, rubber room, whatever it is we live in now). Just clues and "scientific inspiration." There is one researcher (I don't remember which one) that likes to use "crap-in-a-bag" to describe the crud that lab animals are typically fed (screwing up the results, of course) that really, truly sees the problem. But that doesn't stop him from theorizing.
Also, what do you think about fasting regularly for lunch? I do it out of convenience, not having to bother with bringing food to work. I've managed to get a ketone meter, I am reading Art and Science of Low Carb Performance, hoping for any pointers for measuring ketones.
I think you have to try it and see what happens. What I get from the experts is everything from "do it as much as possible" to "don't ever do that!" What works for me on many days is to eat a late lunch (2-3 PM, sometimes even 4) and then have a small snack in the early evening if I need it. On the other days I eat closer to noon or 1 PM and still have a small snack in late afternoon or evening. But then my body is not suited for physical work (it makes me sick -- I don't think my metabolism works right), I do very little of it, and I need far fewer calories than most people. Having lost 50 pounds, I need even less than before, and I have adjusted for that by targeting reduced protein intake.
As a side note, since I excluded butter I've been able to control my appetite so much better. I used to have strong, almost uncontrollable cravings for food after work -- especially for carbohydrate-rich food like nuts -- that have progressively reduced since removing all dairy. Ditto on the carb sensitivity, I totally feel out of sorts if I don't control my nut intake. I think it's probably due to my abusing sugar and carbs in my younger years. Could be epigenetics too, I don't know.
Nuts can be awful. Nuts and dairy are among the "four horsemen" that they talk about at scdlifestyle.com (I forget the other two). If your diet isn't working to correct GI problems, even with SCD, eliminate them and see what happens. The same goes for butter. Some people can't eat it; at least not at their present stage of healing.
Just before I started the KD (in 2011 using Atkins induction), I binged on nuts for two months and gained quite a few pounds, to the point where I was almost obese again. I tried nuts again recently, strictly limiting the amount that I kept in the house, and did not have the weight gain or binging problems (how can you binge when there are none left?), but after a while I started to feel carb craves again. That did it -- no more nuts! And the carb craves have settled back down.
That left a hole, though, in my already very restrictive diet and (as I mentioned elsewhere) and I have been experimenting again with SMALL amounts of goat cheese. I find that I have no tendency to binge on it (unlike cheese from cow's milk) because it works just like eating fat (which it is) -- after having some it is so satiating that I can hardly stand to look at it, let alone eat more. But it's good when I haven't had any for a day, and it seems to possibly be supplying nutrients that might otherwise be in short supply.
I do react to large amounts of dairy (as when doing a food challenge test, or when binging on cheese from cow's milk), but as far as I can tell that is a FODMAP reaction, suggesting a SIBO problem or some other upper GI microbial overgrowth issue. I got the same kind of reaction a year ago when I increased the amount of avocado I was eating after dropping some other staple (eggs, maybe?) as part of an elimination/challenge test. I find that I can handle one avocado a week, with no more than 1/4 in any one meal. I didn't have any this week. Avocados are also a high histamine food, and that might be part of it. They need to be low-carb California avocados (or similar), by the way, as dark on the outside as you can find them.
I want to repeat, dogmatically (for the benefit of new folks here): do not consume pasteurized, homogenized industrial "dairy" products that even cows can't digest. They are poison. This is not a matter of whether humans are adapted to eat the food or not. No amount of time would allow people that are fully human to adapt to eating pure poison, I don't think. We might adapt, but would we still be human?
As I noted in the other post, pasteurization per se, while not desirable, may not be a significant issue with butter and with high-quality (for us in the US that often means "imported") aged cheeses that contain little protein. And if you have FODMAP issues then it needs to be "hard" cheese, not soft. And if you still have problems even with small amounts, don't eat it!
